BlackBerry App Roundup for January 8th, 2010!

Happy 2010 to all! Hope you had an enjoyable holiday, and a safe (and fun) New Years... I know I did. With CES in full swing, let's get right down to business. Covered in the App Roundup this week are the following titles:

Freebies of the Week:

I spellt and have such gooder grammar than ewe. Everyone can use a dictionary and thesaurus from time to time, right? The folks at Dictionary.com recently released their Dictionary and Thesaurus app in App World (back on the 21st of December)... and it's worth a look. Besides the benefit of being a freebie, this app will help you out with more than 325,000 words and definitions... Plus 275,000 synonyms. Powerful to say the least, if you do a lot of writing on your BlackBerry, it may not be a bad idea to load this one up.

Addicted to fantasy sports? Think you can pick more winners than everyone else? Project Vegas is a new (and free) app that claims to be the 'Ultimate Fantasy Sports Pick'em App'... and it's for BlackBerry only. The concept is simple. Pick over/under winners for matchups, and watch your account grow with virtual cash... cash that can be exchanged for real prizes.

Key features of Project Vegas:

Earn virtual currency that can be cashed in for real prizes.

Live Scoring: Follow your picks as the game happens.

Game Reminders: Get email notifications when your favorite team is playing, and when your picked game is over.

Game Schedule: See full game schedules for all teams.

Add, Edit or Delete picks: Change your mind on a pick? Update or delete it right up until game time.

In Case You Missed It...

If you're already at CES, or are planning on hitting it up over the weekend, you can't go without the CES Mobile app for BlackBerry. Thrown together by the folks at Boopsie, the app will help you get the most out of CES. Search exhibitors, get live event updates, access a custom planner, and a whole lot more.

UberTwitter has gone live with their Beta 6 release. This award winning app (won the CrackBerry Best Twitter App of 2009) now includes a long laundry list of updates and changes that I'm sure you'll enjoy. Here they are:

Lists, Lists, Lists!!! - You can create, delete, subscribe, add members, view members, all the functionality you would expect of an Über mobile client!

Find People - You can search for people, just like the 'Find People' link on Twitter's home page.

New Icon - We love it!

Über Bar - We couldn't resist the name! This is a tab bar at the top of the screen, the neat thing is that you can add your own tabs! A list can be a tab, users timelines, and soon saved searches

Larger Avatars - Click the profile picture, and view a larger version! You can even email that larger version!

TwitLonger - Yes, you can tweet MUCH longer tweets now, thanks to the folks over at TwitLonger.com, we have fully integrated this capability into both sending long tweets, and automatically retrieving long tweets. We love it!

What The Trend? - Ever wonder why certain topics were trending or what they meant? No more! We have integrated with the folks over at WhatTheTrend.com to allow you to see the explanations for trending topics, and also for you to provide your own explanations!

Choice of timeline layout - Choose the new 'bubble' layout or the original 'bar' layout.

Verified Users - We show a small blue check-mark icon in the timeline to denote verified users

Want to save the drain that WiFi has on your BlackBerry? SmartWiFi from S4BB combines cell tower and WiFi data to automatically turn your WiFi off when you're no longer in a hotspot. It's basically a hotspot optimizer, turning your WiFi on or off as you come and go from known hotspot locations (you can setup WiFi locations within the app).

Key features:

Save battery life by turning off WiFi when no needed.

Remembers the WiFi locations you use.

Up to 100 WiFi locations supported.

Powers WiFi back on when you are back at WiFi coverage.

Saves battery by avoiding your device to constantly check for available WiFi hotspots.

New This Week

This is hilarious... Hilarious, and you know what, actually kind of practical at the same time. I know some of you are going to pick this one up and use it! Massage for BlackBerry helps you give awesome massages by controling the intensity of the vibration coming from your BlackBerry. Dial it up for a more intense massage, and dial it down for something a little more gentle. Five different settings are built-in! All that is required here is OS 4.2.

This very simple app from Enscand lets you find nearby biodiesel retailers via GPS (or ZIP code). Not only will it point you towards the location, but it will tell you the blends that are available as well, give you contact information for the station, and more. After you fill up, the Biodiesel Buddy will also track your fuel economy, and tally up how much CO2 you've saved. Cool!

Biodiesel Buddy is on sale now through the end of the month for $1.99. Check it out here.

With the NFL Playoffs kicking off this weekend, I thought it might be appropriate to include a little football love. That love takes the form of a new 'Gridiron' theme from Cellular Pros. Pretty standard stuff here when it comes to themes... There's a custom 'scoreboard' banner, custom icons, battery meter and more. There's 2 versions available, one for OS 4.7 and another for OS 5.0.

Qdial is a new app for the Storm series that lets you dial with insane speed. The app features 10 slots that are linked to 10 contacts in your address book. Once you have your 'slots' setup, click the corresponding call button next to the contact and you'll automatically call them. In a nutshell, this app basically lets you perform 2 click calling from your homescreen. Awesome.

Think of BerryJoose as steroids for your BlackBerry... except it's legal, and there are no health repercussions. BerryJoose runs quietly in the background, optimizing your Berry's processes to improve your productivity and performance. It minimizes memory leaks, prevents bad connections and dropped calls, eliminates the need for so many battery pulls, and a heck of a lot more. All that is required here is a BlackBerry running a minimum of OS 4.2.1.

Cool at BlackBerry App World:

WeatherBug Elite is a premium weather application built for BlackBerry. Hitting us at $4.99, this 'elite' version of WeatherBug does have benefits. There are no ads, real time weather notification alerts via BlackBerry push technology (US Only), and a whole lot more. Other key features include:

Until Next Week..

Have news on BlackBerry Apps? New BlackBerry Apps, Updated BlackBerry Apps, Free BlackBerry Apps... it's all good! If you have any software news tips send them in to me at softwareroundup@crackberry.com. I can't do it without your help!

I really like this app. Tried most of the others. If getting the weather and forecast is what you want, this is an accurate app that offers ez navigation. As well the info is always accurate, always get a temp reading from home with in 1 degree. Usually I get say 12.5 on my thermo at home, weather bug telling me 13. I see snow on my screen, look out and it had started snowing....that was this morning. :)

Very happy with this. It does lack the fancy homepage the berryweather offers. I myself can not stand the navi on berryweather and the app just seems empty once you are past that fancy home screen. Again that is my opinion.

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